Saturday, June 26, 2010

The Death Of A Giant...

The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, otherwise known as Thunnus Thynnus, Northern Bluefin Tuna or Giant Bluefin Tuna is in danger of extermination due to the BP Oil Spill. Atlantic Bluefin Tuna are known to spawn in only two breeding grounds, one in the Western Mediterranean and the other is in the Gulf of Mexico. The Atlantic Bluefin specie is known to venture to different areas to feed but they are known to return to both their respective breeding grounds to spawn. In the past the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna have been threatened by commercial fishing, which are controlled to a certain extent by the local Fishing and Wildlife Authorities but now they are threatened by an enemy that they have no protection from…the BP Oil Spill and their Dispersants, both of which pose their own set of dangers to this prized and valuable fish and their delicate spawning cycles.
This type of tuna is said to be the most tasty of the species when compared to the Pacific Tuna, The Southern Tuna, The Bigeye Tuna, The Longtail Tuna and the Yellowfin Tuna. The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is the most highly prized in Japan for Sushi, where it is a delicacy and one large Tuna in Jan 2009 was recorded as being sold for a record $173,000. A selling price of $100,000 is not uncommon, and represents a large and lucrative market for the Tuna caught in The Gulf of Mexico.
Each female Tuna is thought to produce up to 30 million eggs and these egg spawns are facing untold dangers from the dispersants being used in the spill. The eggs contain Fish Oil, and the Dispersants are known to affect the oil and cause the egg spawn to be lost.
There are only two large breeding grounds and when they are killed off in the Gulf of Mexico, there will remain only the one in the Mediterranean and we will lose many forms of jobs and various streams of income related to this Majestic Animal, which are known to reach a weight of well over 1000 pounds. After BP has cleaned up the Gulf, it is expected that we will not have an Atlantic Bluefin population anymore…

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Flammable water in your sink?? WTF??

"'GasLand', a documentary that premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and focuses on hydraulic fracturing, will begin airing on HBO starting June 21 at 9 p.m. The documentary focuses on American communities that have been impacted by the increase in natural gas drilling--specifically hydraulic fracturing--across the country.
The documentary's writer and director, Josh Fox, had been approached by a natural gas company who was interested in leasing his family's Milanville, Pa., home for drilling; they would receive a signing offer of $100,000. Fox set out across America in search of information about natural gas drilling methods and their impacts on the environment and health of the people and areas in the drilling locations. Locally, he visited Dimock, Susquehanna County, where natural gas drilling had already been taking place ", North Central PA.com reports.

From Teeluck...
What Mr. Fox found is dumbfounding to the unsuspecting, but for us in the higher intellectual club, it is just par for the course. The companies are doing such damage to the underground environment that natural gas and Chemicals are seeping into the water shed and water wells. The water that comes out of many people's kitchen sinks are as a result...Flammable!! Yes, I said Flammable. This is not even the main problem in my opinion.

While Mr. Fox is insisting that the companies are using upwards of 500 chemicals for this extraction process to get the payload they seek, one PR firm hired by and speaking for the industry, adamantly state that they are only using up to 12 toxic chemicals to maintain this type of extraction. My point of disagreement is that even if they were only using 10 Toxic Chemicals...that's 10 Chemicals too many!! Keep in mind these chemicals are toxic and the fact that people are now ingesting water that contains these chemicals and even Natural Gas, it is indeed a frightening thought.

What if people start to Combust later on if they ingest to much of this stuff?? I am convinced that this stuff will cause Cancer. This extraction phenomenon is now in New York, Pennsylvania and at least 20 other states and it shows no evidence of slowing down in it's advance to other States. The other shameful thing is that they are not under any meaningful Regulations which will protect the citizens who have been affected or the rest of us who may soon become victims of this atrocity as well.

Original Article by NorthCentralPA.com

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Modern Day Frankenstein??

Right about now, it would be great if we could release into the Gulf of Mexico a vat of bugs that did nothing but eat gobs of oil and digest it into harmless smaller bits. Meanwhile, we'd power the cleanup vessels with microbes that swallow grass clippings or seaweed and spit out fuel, so we'd no longer need to punch holes in the bottom of the Gulf in the first place.

Such is the promise of synthetic biology, which, according to the people who have tried to explain it to me, is basically a marketing term for all kinds of research in which scientists tinker with biological bits to make useful things — sort of like living Lego blocks. The latest breakthrough in the field came a few weeks ago, with news that left headline writers torn between Genesis and Frankenstein: the biopioneer Craig Venter was said to have become the first to create life in the lab. What Venter did was replace the natural genome in a cell with a slightly modified synthetic one, which then issued the orders by which the cell reproduced — and brought science a little further into the realm of science fiction.

The gift of man-made life — biofuels made of algae, tumor-seeking microbial missiles — comes wrapped in a risk: What if the oil-eating bug mutates, as the horror-movie version inevitably does, and starts eating other things — like us? It's perhaps not surprising that when bioethicists describe synthetic biology, they sound like the characters in Jurassic Park. "When dealing with biological entities," notes Thomas Murray, president of the Hastings Center, a bioethics organization, "life has a tendency to find a way."

Accidents at power plants are bad enough. But a leak from a bioreactor could be worse, since bacteria can learn new tricks when you're not looking. Microbes excel at exchanging DNA, Murray notes — "like microbial French kissing." That bug we introduce into the ocean to sip the spill might end up swapping DNA with other living things. "We have a ways to go," he says, "before we can really know what risks we're running if we release these organisms into the environment."

All of which confirms the need for careful oversight, but we haven't proven very good at this. The crossroads of science and politics is a dodgy place. For proof, you have only to consider that for all the furor in the past dozen years, there's still no federal law banning human cloning; there's only, so far, scientific restraint. In 2001, President George W. Bush was condemned for politicizing science with his decision to limit federal funding for stem-cell research; in 2009 President Obama was praised for reversing it, even though his decision was arguably just as political. You can object to Bush's stem-cell decision because you believe embryos have no moral standing, or to Obama's decision because you think they do. But neither President should be attacked for "interfering with science," as though research — especially publicly funded research — should be immune from regulation. The left may have faith in the findings of think tanks, the right in the freedom of markets, but on this one, I want a more inclusive, expansive debate. Without public oversight, we are certain to wake up one day to news of some private breakthrough that rattles our bones: a human-animal hybrid, a cloned child, a fetus grown solely to harvest its parts.

As laboratories incubate new blends of man and machine — creatures whose creators used a keyboard — it seems mad to say that philosophy should not intervene. And indeed, when the news about Venter broke, Obama called on his bioethics commission to "undertake, as its first order of business, a study of the implications of this scientific milestone," including an assessment of "any potential health, security or other risks."

The path of progress cuts through the four-way intersection of the moral, medical, religious and political — and whichever way you turn, you are likely to run over someone's deeply held beliefs. Venter's bombshell revived the oldest of ethical debates, over whether scientists were playing God or proving he does not exist because someone re-enacted Genesis in suburban Maryland. Others dismiss the worry on the grounds that creating new forms of life is not the same as creating life. One doctor friend of mine suggested that "they haven't created life in any sense of the word, other than a person playing a cassette has invented the tape recorder."

People are bound to disagree about when scientists are crossing some moral Rubicon. That is all the more reason to debate, in public and in advance, where those boundaries lie — rather than doing so after the fact, when researchers are celebrating some technical triumph and the rest of us are wondering what price we will pay for it.

Time Magazine article written by Nancy Gibbs.

From Teeluck, The road to discoveries that are beneficial to mankind is littered with potential risks which can themselves become as large a threat as the threats they are designed to counter and indeed eliminate or make harmless. The search continues...as does the risks.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

STOP CIRCUMCISION NOW!!



A 35-year-old mother was arrested for allegedly circumcising her 10-month-old daughter, police said. The LaGrange woman was being held in the Troup County jail with out bond, Sgt. Chad Mann told the AJC. She faces female genital mutilation and child cruelty charges, Mann said.
“A relative changing the baby noticed that she appeared to be circumcised,” Mann said.
The AJC is not publishing the mother’s name to avoid identifying the infant.
The baby was taken to Children’s Health care of Atlanta, where a doctor determined she had under gone some form of surgical removal of the clitoris, Mann said. The baby’s father was previously granted temporary custody, and he alerted authorities about the child’s injury, police said.

“She’s in perfect health, other than that,” Mann said.

The baby is in her father’s custody, police said. Authorities are not releasing details about a possible motive for the mutilation.

“Some of the areas of the investigation are sensitive,” Mann said.

The baby’s mother was arrested Wednesday after noon. Her first court appear­ance is scheduled for Friday morning.

DFACS officials told Columbus, Ga., newschannel WTVM9 that the woman also has three other children, but declined to say to release the location of them.

An estimated 100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide have been victims of female genital mutilation, according to the World Health Organization. Most of the procedures have occurred in Africa. According to the WHO The procedure has no health benefits, and can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating.

From Teeluck…I am appalled, ashamed and so freaking angry that the innocent among us are treated in such macabre and inhumane ways that it actually hurts to write this article. This “Satanic” practice of circumcision, practiced on both male and female victims Globally, by the delirious people who believe in Satan and this Satanic practice in some freaky way…is truly disgusting and should be outlawed around the Globe. To these perpetrators, it does not matter the horrendous affects it has on the innocent victims and the awful life the females face as a direct consequence…it is truly a step backward for Mankind…religion shows it’s dark and evil face in this practice. Let us bring awareness to this evil practice so in some way we can begin to push back against it... for the sake of it’s help less victims.

Many thanks to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Newt Want's Gov't Shutdown...Those Who Forget The Past Are Condemned To Repeat It !!


Read full article at ThinkProgress.org by Faiz Shakir April 9 2010
http://thinkprogress.org/?p=90910

Since more Republicans are conceding the full repeal of health reform is unlikely to occur on President Obama’s watch, Gingrich offered a two-tiered approach that is becoming increasingly popular among conservatives:

Here’s my promise: … When we win control of the House and Senate this fall, Stage One of the end of Obamaism will be a new Republican Congress in January that simply refuses to fund any of the radical efforts. […]

Once upon a time, I used to be Speaker of the House and I actually understand the legislative process. And the truth is, under our Constitution, the Congress doesn’t have to pass the money. If EPA gets not budget, it can’t enforce cap-and-trade. […]

So Stage One of Obamaism being gone is to simply win this fall and not fund it for two years. Stage Two is…to ensure Obama joins Jimmy Carter in the tradition of one-party presidents (sic). And, that in that context, that we be prepared to commit that a Republican President and a Republican Congress in February and March of 2013 will repeal every radical bill passed by this machine.

Gingrich’s remarks were met with roars of approval from the right-wing crowd at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in April 2010.

Gingrich is recycling from his old playbook. As Salon’s Mike Madden describes the “new” strategy, “In other words, shut down the government.” For approximately three weeks in the winter of 1995, Gingrich orchestrated a shutdown of the entire federal government by refusing to fund its operations, either by passing a budget or a continuing resolution. CNN reported at the time, “The current shutdown began at midnight Friday, when Congress did not extend a temporary spending measure put in place after the last closure.”

Newt’s budget showdown with President Clinton caused the former Speaker significant political damage. His personal disapproval ratings reached a high of 65 percent. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) criticized Gingrich’s handling of the shutdown, saying he “made the mistake of his life.” It’s a mistake that Gingrich appears willing to make again.

As Dave Weigel notes, “Gingrich proposing the same endgame as” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). She told G. Gordon Liddy this week, “I support the House of Representatives defunding Obamacare so that the bill is denied the funds it needs in order to be able to work.”

Jed Lewinson notes that Gingrich acknowledged in 1996 that his shutdown strategy failed. The New York Times reported, “Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged in a recent interview, ‘our strategy failed’ because Mr. Clinton and his allies, instead of surrendering and making a budget deal, ‘were tougher than I thought they would be.’”

Read full article at ThinkProgress.org by Faiz Shakir April 9 2010
http://thinkprogress.org/?p=90910

From Teeluck...Quite simply, those who forget the past are condemed to repeat it...we cannot afford to re-elect the "Republican Recession Making Party" (The RRMP)...

Saturday, June 5, 2010

US Companies Destroying Our Good Name...



Excerpt taken from NY Times. Com article...By Bob Herbert...

BP’s calamitous behavior in the Gulf of Mexico is the big oil story of the moment. But for many years, indigenous people from a formerly pristine region of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador have been trying to get relief from an American company, Texaco (which later merged with Chevron), for what has been described as the largest oil-related environmental catastrophe ever.

“As horrible as the gulf spill has been, what happened in the Amazon was worse,” said Jonathan Abady, a New York lawyer who is part of the legal team that is suing Chevron on behalf of the rainforest inhabitants.

It has been a long and ugly legal fight and the outcome is uncertain. But what has happened in the rainforest is heartbreaking, although it has not gotten nearly the coverage that the BP spill has.

What’s not in dispute is that Texaco operated more than 300 oil wells for the better part of three decades in a vast swath of Ecuador’s northern Amazon region, just south of the border with Colombia. Much of that area has been horribly polluted. The lives and culture of the local inhabitants, who fished in the intricate waterways and cultivated the land as their ancestors had done for generations, have been upended in ways that have led to widespread misery.

Texaco came barreling into this delicate ancient landscape in the early 1960s with all the subtlety and grace of an invading army. And when it left in 1992, it left behind, according to the lawsuit, widespread toxic contamination that devastated the livelihoods and traditions of the local people, and took a severe toll on their physical well-being.

A brief filed by the plaintiffs said: “It deliberately dumped many billions of gallons of waste byproduct from oil drilling directly into the rivers and streams of the rainforest covering an area the size of Rhode Island. It gouged more than 900 unlined waste pits out of the jungle floor — pits which to this day leach toxic waste into soils and groundwater. It burned hundreds of millions of cubic feet of gas and waste oil into the atmosphere, poisoning the air and creating ‘black rain’ which inundated the area during tropical thunderstorms.”

Read more at ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/opinion/05herbert.html?src=mv&ref=general

From Teeluck...Many Conservatives are telling me that I am being too harsh on the Oil Companies and I should also be less critical of the Republican Party which encourage them to pollute the environments in the many different countries they operate in, by stripping the regulations under which they are governed. These Companies, when flying and operating under the US flag and being Ambassadors to this Great Country, should be better regulated as to their Operational Policies inside and indeed outside this Country. If they do not want to be Ambassadors representing us, they must be made to register another Company under a different flag, because like it or not, when it is a US Company enjoying the good graces of the host Country because they are a US Company, what they do reflects on us all. As with the above article, there are many things these unscrupulous companies do that we in the US want no blame or part thereof.

Original NY Times article by Bob Herbert.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Will BP Get Away With Murder?? Yes!!



Remember Exxon?? Well it is my humble opinion that we are seeing a careful coming together of minds with the particular goal of having a repeat of the Exxon result. We have seen in recent days a large amount of donations targeted to the Republican party's hopefuls in the coming elections. Haliburton is going all out to pad the pockets of Republicans and they are already reaping the results of their hard spent dollars in the form of some vociferous complaints by Republican party hacks, about the job that the Obama Administration is doing, as it has been left wanting of more action and better media coverage. While this is going on, the ball has started rolling in the direction of getting the BP lawsuits to be conducted in Texas. Why would they do that? Republicans have always spent much of their efforts in office to pad the courts with dishonest judges in my opinion... At least Judges who are sympathetic to the Corporations instead of the public. Like Exxon and countless other cases, these judges are experts at circumventing the processes that exact justice upon these Corporations and their causes. Many Asbestos victims have never been paid one dime for their troubles after being exposed to the silent Killer in the line of their duties for the same Company who is denying their claims.

Mike Papantonio is now saying that BP will possibly try to have the various lawsuits consolidated into one big, oily, sticky, stinky and messy glob and put into the hands of one of these "professional" stalwarts of the Republican agenda...an agenda of Corporate over Country, powerful before people and money instead of morality. One just has to look once at the countless animals that are dying as a result of Corporate greed in BP's latest spill, to become outraged at the issue. We all know that the Republicans shredded the regulation requirements which in turn was key in BP being able to not have better safety and prevention methods in place before the accident.

If Mr. Papantonio is as correct in his prediction as I think he is, the end result will be ...BP gets away...with murder, 11 human murders and millions of animals in the wild. Murder is a harsh and dirty word, but it barely describes the deeds that deserve the term. It actually consolidates the grievous acts that sometimes take a long time to plan and execute and puts it into a short, neat word...murder... that does not really give the horrendous act, the justice it deserves. Plan? Am I suggesting that BP planned this accident? No, but they planned the cost of everything from accident, to clean up, to restitution, to favorable advertising, to raising the price of it's products globally, slightly and steadily, as little as a nickle raised on a gallon of gas... which will, over time recoup all their expenses. It won't end up costing them a penny. So yes they planned some aspects of this. They planned that paying, amounts to less than the profits they make by cutting corners. In this case they did not predict the scope of this disaster and they may in the long run still lose out in many ways, I know that I personally have been boycotting their gas stations as I have boycotted Exxon's since their spill in Alaska.

We have seen this many times before, Car companies choosing to leave defective cars on the road and instead pay some limited damages to the victims while reaping the Billions in profits. Shame on you, those Republicans who are responsible for this shredding of the regulations...this blood is on your hands. In my opinion, whatever microscopic payments BP will be required to make will in no way compensate for the widespread murder they caused.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Bayer Sold Aids Tainted Drugs In America



This is one of the Pillars of Society and what they are capable of...



Republicans have touted the honesty and integrity of the "Free Markets" for decades, while we are subjected to this type of corporate excesses which usually result in the loss of our civil liberties or even lives.
They tout the benefits of a culture of less oversight and regulation, at the expense of the American People. We as concerned citizens cannot allow these Republicans to win any more seats in the upcoming elections because it will surely result in America being thrown to the mercy of the AIG's, Madoff's, Banks, BP's, Bayer's and the rest of these "Honest Companies" It is time to start mobilizing our efforts to increase our hold on the reigns of power in the upcoming elections, tomorrow may be too late. What we have seen over and over again is the results of Republican mischief causing untold damage to our environment and our people. The current BP Oil Spill is a prime example of their whittling away the regulatory system and standards and the resulting effects. After eight years of Bush, we have a country floundering and on the brink of disaster. Why should we put them in control again? They are not capable of doing anything different than what we have seen them do time and time again...destroying the country at every turn. Mobilize my friends, time is short, get involved in the movement to insure no more Republican wins, no more Republican Recessions... no more Republican Oil Disasters. Our fate is in our hands.